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With President Donald Trump in attendance, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, gave a sermon at a prayer service Tuesday morning at Washington National Cathedral focused on national unity.
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She said they gathered “to pray for unity as a people and a nation — not for agreement, political or otherwise — but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division.”
Watch the full prayer service below.
She ended her sermon with a direct appeal to Trump, to have mercy on LGBTQ+ people and undocumented migrant workers: “You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.”
WATCH: ‘Golden age of America begins right now,’ Trump says
Budde has criticized Trump before, rebuking his “racialized rhetoric” and blaming him for inciting violence on Jan. 6. She was “ outraged ” in 2020 after Trump staged an appearance in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. He held up a Bible after the area had been cleared of peaceful protesters.
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